Comments on: Much Adu About Nothing?

By: Steven Jones

Steven Jones — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:54:28 +0000

I think the one thing that the US have is a wide variety of nationalities. For example there may be an American born kid with Mexican parents – he’s going possess the Latin American style of football which an mix very well with the physical style that you talk about.

The MLS pundit on the Podcast I listen to believes that the MLS will produce a world class player in the next fives years – of course that’s his opinion but it’ll be a strange phenominom having a world class US football player.

By: Alex Allen

Alex Allen — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:55:36 +0000

I think that the USA have to get over the idea that a ‘good’player means a player that can perform a lot of tricks. I simply don’t think the USA is capable of producing players with the natural skill of Ronaldinho or Messi. Those players had nothing else but football, they practiced constantly. You can’t replicate that feeling of having nothing but football. The USA need to focus on fitness and realise that there are other ways of creating good players. They could create players in the Lampard, Gerrard mould and improve passing, fitness, positioning. A good side to compare the sort of players they should aspire to produce is Sweden. Fit, organised, a few prolific players but generally consistent and technically proficient. They are on that road already, they just need to enhance what they have rather than aspire to something they can’t hope to achieve. Especially because as of right now, the standard of organisation defensively isn’t good enough to provide players like Adu with the test they need to show whether they have the strength and ability to perform at a higher level.

By: Steve Atkinson

Steve Atkinson — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:33:07 +0000

Absolutely agree with you about the coaching, and have mentioned in another article the importance of grass roots in player development. Given a decent and sensibly targetted investment in grass roots football the US could produce great players in a few years, such is the growth of the sport at a youth level.

I find the development of the game out there exciting because the federation have the opportunity to make drastic changes that would be impossible in the UK. I think our coaches emphasis on endeavour and success over ability is a major downfall in player development.

What steps do you think should be taken to elevate the level of quality developed on the whole?

By: AJC`

AJC` — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:25:21 +0000

Agreed, overhyped and beleived it himself, and who could blame him?

By: aallen

aallen — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:33:52 +0000

It’s very difficult, how do you prepare an attacking player for Europe when the standard is so inferior at home? I’m going to write something longer to this effect, but the MLS need to stop trying to find some sort of big stage attraction to lure people through the gates and start getting the coaching in place to develop better players. People aren’t stupid, once they’ve been to a game and been disappointed once they’ll stay away. I won’t write too much, I’ll save it for a bigger blog, but I think the MLS should take a lot of responsibility for damaging Adu’s career. Imagine the scenario, raised and told he was some sort of superstar his entire childhood, demands move to Europe and realises that compared to others his age such as Pato, Gourcoff etc he is quite average. Is that sensible coaching? Hopefully he can lose the attitude, work hard and make a career for himself, even if it isn’t quite the career he would have wanted.

By: Steven Jones

Steven Jones — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:14:55 +0000

A true victim of hype I think. Even though he’s at Monaco/Benfica I still think he’s done fairly well after all he is only 19. After all there aren’t many US players playing for top teams let alone 19 year old ones.

The MLS needs to get more talent across to Europe and maybe one day they will produce a World Class talent – Freddy Adu unfortunately isn’t World Class. I think the Freddy Adu situation is actually a reflection on the MLS as you mention in your article – that however is another issue altogether.